


Nightmares and Shadows

by Krethes



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Comfort, Gen, Hogwarts First Year, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Nightmares, Pre-Relationship, pre-wolfstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-27 09:15:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30120519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krethes/pseuds/Krethes
Summary: Remus's first two weeks at Hogwarts were sleepless and, when he DID manage to rest, filled with night terrors that followed him into wakefulness. One night, the nightmares stop.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	Nightmares and Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Some descriptions of fear, pain, and monsters in the nightmare sequences.

Shadows followed him wherever he turned, long, jagged, haunting his days and his dreams with tongues that lapped and jaws that nipped the frayed edges of his mind. During the day, they nested below his eyes like house cats below a golden pool and grew larger with each passing night. 

Hogwarts had been Remus’s home for nearly a fortnight and though his body had been exhausted by his first away-from-home transformation and his mind stretched and tested to its very limits with his lessons, Remus had not slept a consecutive three hours since the end of August. Back then, he was curled up in his twin bed at home with the gentle sounds of the waves singing him to sleep. He’d left the window open on his last night to sear the smell of salt air and the beach into his memory but now, staring at the scarlet bed hangings, Remus couldn’t quite remember it.

He wished he could open a window  _ here _ , but the Prefects hadn’t explicitly told him he  _ could _ and he didn’t want to get in trouble so soon. Besides, Remus shared the room with three other boys who, while they’d been friendly enough to him over the past several days, might not appreciate the chill of a Scotland autumn breeze flickering through their dormitory. He swished open his bed curtains to let the air circulate, feeling overly warm as he often did. While he felt exposed under the waning crescent’s light, he was cooler for it.

His three dormmates were fast asleep -- Peter snored nasally on the far side of the room next to James, whose breathing was the deep, slow rhythm of proper slumber, and Sirius, whose breath hitched every so often in a dreaming pattern and who had nightmares, too, sometimes. Remus had plenty of time at night for such observations and only wished his brain could handle revision of his classes so that he’d be doing something useful. He felt so far behind his peers. Nothing he went over this late at night ever stuck through 'til morning, though.

The air current that now flowed freely over him, untethered, soothed him. Staring up at the canopy above him, Remus counted to one hundred in French and back down in Latin; by the time he reached twelve again, he was asleep.

_ He was being chased through a thicket, rich with inch-long thorns and vines that tried to rend his flesh and snare his legs. He wasn’t  _ him _ , but the wolf, long limbs and tiny body, tawny fur that stood on end as he fled. Something was on his trial -- hot breath and the smell of old, moldering blood -- its footsteps heavy and graceless behind him. He wanted to look back, see this predator, but instinct drove him further and further forward. Don’t look back, the voice in his head warned, clear as a bell. Keep running.  _

_ So he ran, his fear as pungent in the air as the beast on his heels. Snarls broke the panting silence, loud, vicious, murderous in intent. He stumbled, tripped over his own too-big paws, and tumbled ears-over-tail down a hill. His pursuer gave chase and when he lifted his head, all he saw was a slavering, gray muzzle, huge, dripping yellowed fangs, and a tongue as red as blood. It clamped down on his neck and shook, thrashing him around and it hurt, it burned, it-- _

He sat up in a pool of sweat, drenched from head to toe. His breathing was ragged, tearing its way out of his lungs in quick, frantic pants. Remus immediately wrapped his fingers around his neck and sighed in relief when no blood came away, only clear, salty sweat. He looked at the clock spelled on the wall and whimpered -- 5 am. He’d scraped a mere ninety minutes together this time.

The next night saw Remus curled on his side, amber eyes reflected in the mirrored surface of the sleeping draught Madame Pomfrey had offered him after the Full Moon. He’d only taken half of it then and slept fitfully as his body recovered. While the mediwitch had been nice enough to him, Remus didn’t trust her off-hand. His healers at St. Mungo’s were fond of the ‘knock the werewolf out and then poke it’ method, and though they had never been unprofessional or untoward, Remus hated waking up days later with no recollection. 

Remus battled with himself -- the potion offered no reprieve from the nightmares that stalked him, it only served to relax his mind enough to actually slip under. But, there was a quiz in Potions tomorrow and Remus had already embarrassed himself with his ineptitude in the first week. He  _ needed _ to sleep, however he could. Setting his mouth in a determined frown, Remus reached out, uncorked the flask, and tossed the liquid -- like cold honey and barley sweets -- down his throat before he could change his mind.

The draught set into motion quickly and his last conscious thought was a prayer, a small, timid one, to his mother’s God that he could sleep peacefully.

_ He was running again, this time as a boy and on sandy dunes. His bare feet found no purchase on the slippery mounds and he kept falling. A beast still chased him -- he recognized it tonight, matted gray fur and black eyes that seemed to see into his very core. Remus slid to the bottom of a dune and lay crumpled in a heap, trembling with fear. He drew his arms and legs around him protectively, but he felt the brute’s breath on him like a brand, felt the saliva dripping from his maw. He braced himself for the pain, waited long, terrifying seconds, minutes, hours?  _

_ A dog stood in front of him, shaggy and black, and barked at the monster. Its ears were pricked forward and its tail straight up, unwagging. It growled and snapped back at the demon -- where had he  _ seen _ it before? -- until it retreated, recalcitrant but deterred. The dog looked at Remus, searching his face, and Remus was captivated by the moonsilver eyes set in its fine face. After several seconds, the dog curled at Remus's feet but stayed alert, always watching the horizon. It was heavy and warm against his legs, and Remus’s fear melted to peace. _

When Remus awoke, it was to sunlight streaming through his open curtains and the soft mumbles of sleepy boys. He looked at the clock -- 7 am. He’d slept six hours. Remus stretched languidly on his sheets as he considered the cause, but when he inhaled in his stretch, a strange-but-not smell hit his nose. 

He followed the smell as subtly as he could, sniffing his nightshirt, his comforter, and finally the pillows.  _ There _ . Like thistle and heather and warm dog. Confused, Remus inhaled deeply but was aware of the others milling about in the room, so resolved to figure it out later.

That night, there was no sleeping potion to help him slip away, but his counting trick worked again. The horrors came anew, all shrieking shouts and snarling wolves. Something touched his arm -- not part of the dream -- and he startled awake. The smell from that morning hit him like a truck as Remus stared at a pair of wide silver-in-the-moonlight eyes.

Sirius shushed him and pulled the curtains closed before wriggling under Remus’s blankets as if this was the most normal thing in the world. His hair spilled onto the pillow like ink, jet-black and liquid-soft, and Remus looked at it only to shake off the familiar intensity of Sirius’s eyes. 

“What--” Remus hissed, stopped only by Sirius’s hand across his mouth.

“Shh!  _ Silencio _ ,” Sirius spelled, and a muted sort of ‘pop’ settled around them. He tucked his wand back into his pocket and lay back down to look at Remus, who was stunned Sirius knew a spell he hadn’t even  _ read _ about in his Charms textbook.

“...What are you doing, Black?” Remus asked again, his fingers gripping his bedsheets. 

“You have nightmares.” 

“... So do you.”

“Not important. Did you sleep okay last night?”

Remus flushed, heat rising in his cheeks. “I… yes, eventually.”

Sirius smiled, his pearly-white teeth flashing in the dark. “Great. Go to sleep,” he commanded as if that explained everything. When Remus continued to balk at him, he rolled his eyes and scowled. “I have a little brother who has nightmares, too. He says this helps him. Don’t make it  _ weird _ , Lupin. Go to sleep.” 

Remus scoured his face for a sign of mocking, for any hint that this would turn out poorly, but found none on the pale face inches from his own. He nodded mutely and curled onto his left side. Sleeping next to someone was new, but soon Sirius’s breath deepened and his heartbeat slowed to a pattern that resonated in Remus’s ears, drumming a rhythm that soothed his anxious mind. 

The nightmares did not return that night, and the night after, Remus slept as soundly as he had at home. He and Sirius did not discuss their sleeping arrangement after that, and if the other boys knew, they didn’t say anything. After a week’s full rest, Sirius stayed in his bed and Remus learned to pick his heartbeat out of the three in the room and it became his lullaby, serenading him to dreamland.

The nightmares did not come again.


End file.
